1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a baseball game apparatus which is communicably connected with another game apparatus operable by an opponent game player and in which a pitching position designation area and a batting position designation area of the same shapes and a pitcher character and a batter character simulating a pitcher and a batter battling with each other are displayed at specified positions of a screen of a display device by an image display control means, the both characters are caused to battle by a pitching motion by the pitcher character and a batting motion by the batter character at the respective positions designated by a game player and the opponent game player and the progress of a game simulating a baseball game is controlled in accordance with the battle result.
2. Description of the Background Art
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-325885 (D1) discloses a game system in which a game apparatus including a touch panel and a monitor is connected with another game apparatus via a network. The game apparatus employed in this game system includes a first image display controlling section for displaying a pitcher character, a batter character and a strike zone image on the monitor, a setting section for setting a pitching position (or swing position) in the strike zone image based on operation information inputted via the touch panel and setting a round first mark image based on the set position, a second image display controlling section for displaying the first mark image on the strike zone image in a superimposed manner and displaying a round second mark image indicating the swing position (or pitching position) received from the other game apparatus after a setting processing by the setting section, and a batting result setting section for setting a batting result according to an overlapping degree of the first and second mark images. The sizes (diameters) of the first and second mark images are variably set according to the player ability data of the pitcher character, batter character and the like. This game system provides more varied games while peculiarizing the designation of offense positions and defense positions and a battle result judgment processing by making the sizes of the first and second mark images variable according to the player ability data.
Since the sizes of the first and second mark images for determining the batting result according to the overlapping degree of the first and second mark images are changed according to the player ability data in D1, the game system disclosed in D1 can be evaluated to provide games with a certain variety. However, the sizes of the first and second mark images of player characters appearing in the game can be predicted to a certain degree particularly since skilled game players may grasp or memorize the abilities of the respective player characters to a certain degree. Accordingly, there has been a certain limit in the variety of the game in the game system disclosed in D1. Further, in a baseball-simulating game, pitch sequence is one factor deciding a battle, but it is not easy to directly reflect the pitch sequence as a game strategy in a mode for proceeding with the game with a battle in each at-bat done by one pitch.